The Art of Being Unforgettable: How Networking Can Create Any Opportunity

Whatever stage your career is in, from nascent to experienced, your ability to network, to visualize and then realize the professional opportunities you need, will determine how far it, and you, can eventually go. We live in a period of almost unparalleled intellectual freedom and access to anyone, anywhere. The world is getting dramatically smaller, even as our horizons get larger. If there’s a career you want, nowadays, it’s up to you to create it. Excited, yet?

Spend a Saturday morning with Creativity Yenta ™ Carlota Zimmerman learning, step-by-step, exactly how to use all of the talents and resources you already have to create the job you most desperately desire. Topics to be covered include: creating a LinkedIn profile both relevant and helpful to your chosen industry; using social media to generate brand-boosting content; networking both in person and online; why getting that great internship isn’t enough; how and why to network at different stages of your career and why it’s imperative that you just get started. Today. Now. (I'm looking at you, Sunshine.)

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Carlota is a graduate of Wellesley College and IUB Maurer School of Law. Before launching her coaching business in 2008, she was a produced playwright. Upon graduating Wellesley, she worked in network news for ABC, CNN, MSNBC and FOX at bureaus in Russia and the United States. As a law student, she served an internship with Sen. Clinton’s immigration department, and clerked for Judge Michael Obus of the NY State Supreme Court.  She has lived and worked in New York, Washington, D.C., Russia, India and China. (Guess how many of the above-mentioned opportunities she networked? Exactly.) Carlota absolutely loves helping her clients change their minds to change their professional lives. She’s somewhat less thrilled to be discussing herself in the third person.  Become a fan of her Facebook page, “Carlotaworldwide Creativity Yenta,” for a complimentary consultation!

Make Your Own Luck

I know; that sounds like a line of bad TV dramedy dialogue...but I do have an excellent, non-cheesy point. One of the many, oh so many things this business has taught me is that half the battle is getting out of your own way. If you can actually identify your mistakes, learn from them and thus avoid constantly re-enacting them, you have a much better than average chance of succeeding. Sound simple? I say, "Ha!" in your general direction.

Just yesterday I received a furious, snarling email from an "acquaintance," basically wishing death and dishonor upon me, as well as promising to speak to my father (ominous music here), because...welp, because I had not returned his shopping bag full of clippings sooner. Oh my. I know, dear hearts. I know that really he was furious and frustrated that neither I, nor the world, had given him the love, affection and affirmation that he so greatly desires, and he was unable to articulate that to himself, since self-knowledge is painful, and it was so much easier to unleash that anger upon others. Like me. Alas. I have a hard time feeling anything but pity for this humanoid, since last time I checked, he couldn't even figure out how to get onto LinkedIn's website, so I doubt he's truly going to change the business world. Doubtful.

There was also, recently, the twenty-something "film-maker" whom a dear friend suggested I contact for a project I have coming up. Except the kid never returned my email, and when my friend gently nudged him, he told her that he had decided he wasn't interested and that he was "too busy." Really? Too busy working double-shifts at the restaurant where he waits tables? Too busy to even respond to an email and find out what exactly I was offering? For all he knew, I could have been scouting for a photog to shoot the birth of Kim & Kanye's spawn and I was going to pay him in solid gold doubloons and glitter. But apparently this kid made a choice: he's choosing to be a waiter who sometimes shoots film projects, rather than a film-maker who occasionally has to wait tables. See the difference?

Not to toot my own horn, but I networked myself a career in TV news from Moscow, Russia to Washington, D.C. to NYC simply by following up on every single contact I made, and turning each opportunity into a job. I left NBC News in Russia with a list of names, and in D.C., I called each one of those names and within weeks I was working at Fox, and then CNN and then I sold my soul and the rest is history. I was very hungry. I was also 24. I didn't wait tables. I didn't make excuses. I covered network news, bitches! What the hell else is there to do in the swamp known as D.C.? (If you say "date," um you haven't lived there. Good luck with that. #thehorror)

So, my point is, if you want to succeed, get out of your own way. Don't presume you know what any potential contact might have for you. Don't alienate people because of your own issues...it's a small world. You might regret that email sent in anger. Don't decide that you won't get a certain job, or that you don't know anyone who can help you...without at least spending 5 damn minutes doing some research. Ask around. Schmooze. So many people are so blind to all the opportunities they already have within their own list of Facebook friends, even as they complain about their careers or lack thereof. No me gusta. 

Want some help creating the opportunities you need? Damn right you do! Like my Facebook page, "Carlotaworldwide Creativity Yenta," for a free consultation, or email me @ carlotazee@gmail.com.

The Joys of LinkedIn

I am indeed on LinkedIn, which is both good and bad. It's good for my business, but it's frequently horrific because the evil elves of LinkedIn will, in their desire to be helpful, suggest I reconnect with former boyfriends who wouldn't speak to me if they were under the wheels of my car driving over them. This is going to surprise you, but I am not always the most mature person when it comes to romance. I am not always the easiest person to get along with. I do not always bring happy happy joy joy to the men of America.

I'm leading in with this, because recently LinkedIn tried to get that lovin' feeling going again between me and a certain ex of mine. I'm fairly sure that this particular boy feels something for me more akin to what Hitler felt for his art instructors..so I just sort of chortled, reading LinkedIn's, "Do you know...." Oh, indeed I do. How could I forget the boy who invited his mom to come along on a romantic weekend trip to Graceland. Because truly, adding your mom to my Dirty South adventure is guaranteed spice! Is it hot in here or is it you waking up at 7am to cook your mom breakfast, and yelling at me to be perky...whoo!(My vagina's all, "Blah blah blah, I'm not listening!")

The thing about this particular boy--besides his insanity; besides his lack of humor; besides his assertions that a certain one of my cats was crazy which was all, Hi, Kettle, have you met Pot?--was how much he loathed himself. And thus, by extension, how much he loathed anyone who liked him. Though he was, of course, desperate to be liked. What a tangled web we weave, yes?

He was in the process of getting not one but two doctoral degrees, when I was "dating" him, besides all of his other various degrees and awards. Tall, great figure, handsome...but talk about your own worst enemy. Then again, when you grow up in a family where your father has decided from day one that you're gay, so he never spends any time with you, never even speaks to you; when you grow up in a family in which no one ever tells you they love you, or that they're proud of you, or displays any sort of basic human compassion...well, those types of charming experiences do tend to make things complicated. It's hard to be your own biggest fan when you're raised to despise yourself, and to be ashamed of all that makes you unique. 

He used to frequently talk about his wish to be "normal," by which of course, he meant he simply wanted to be loved and accepted for whom he was. Crazy! His mother, who could only barely grasp how much pain he was in, used to send him all these pamphlets about Jebus loving him, and I wanted to get her in a choke-hold, and scream,"You moron, he doesn't need Jesus, he needs you to for once tell him you love him! For once!" But apparently choke-holding some sense into people is against the law. #horsesh*t

I suppose I bring all this (lurid) back-story up, because when LinkedIn reminded me about him, I found myself genuinely hoping he was happy. (I don't really have to tell you that I was not the best girlfriend for him, since I was dealing with my own value-meal sized issues and did not have tremendous sympathy for anyone else. Oh don't give me that look; at least I'm honest!)  I found myself hoping he had forgiven himself, and given himself the love that he needed and deserved. I also found myself hoping that wherever that healing process was (Allah willing) taking place, it was far FAR away from me and my vagina. Life's too short! We're too busy.

Want some help making your own healing life changes? (We don't have to talk about my personal life. Yes, yes, I promise.) Email me @carlotazee@gmail.com, or like my Facebook page, "Carlotaworldwide Creativity Yenta," for a free consultation!